Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

Biden May Have Droned Innocent Family in Kabul; Possible War Crime

The New York Times published the results of an investigation on Friday that suggests the Biden administration targeted an innocent man who worked for a U.S. organization in a drone strike that killed several civilians. If true, the airstrike could constitute a violation of international law governing such targeted killings in wartime — in other words, a war crime.

The airstrike, which took place on August 29, was presented by the Biden administration as an attack on a potential ISIS-K terrorist who had been driving an explosive-laden vehicle that was to be detonated at the international airport in Kabul. It was the second such strike, following one on Aug. 28 in Nangarhar province against suspected Islamic State terrorists.

The Times report suggests that the U.S. killed “the wrong person” in a report accompanied by security camera footage that shows the target, Zemari Ahmadi, filling water canisters for his family that the military may have mistaken for explosives.

Astonishingly, the Times reports that “[m]ilitary officials said they did not know the identity of the car’s driver when the drone fired.” But in the wake of an August 26 suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. servicemembers as well as scores of Afghan civilians, they believed that he posed an imminent danger based on “how they interpreted his activities that day.”

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‘That’s Correct’ — White House Confirms Joe Biden Hypocrisy on Unvaccinated People Crossing Southern Border

The White House confirmed Friday that President Joe Biden would continue allowing unvaccinated people to cross the border — even while demanding private employers to require vaccines for their workers.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki spoke about the hypocritical rules during an exchange in the daily briefing with Fox News reporter Peter Doocy.

“But it’s a requirement for people at a business with more than a hundred people, and it’s not a requirement for migrants at the southern border,” Doocy noted. “Why?”

“That’s correct,” Psaki replied, quickly moving to the next reporter in the briefing room.

Other White House reporters did not follow up and press Psaki on the administration’s hypocrisy.

For months, the White House has refused to endorse a vaccine mandate for migrants released into the United States, even though the administration is enforcing more onerous mandates on American citizens to get them vaccinated.

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Americans turned away from Virginia hospitals over Afghan evacuees

A massive influx of Afghan evacuees strained Northern Virginia hospitals so much this week that American citizens were being turned away.

A hospital near Dulles Expo Center has been running out of beds, forcing the facility to turn away non-Afghan patients who didn’t need critical care, according to The Washington Post. The overwhelmed hospital system prompted a regional emergency response group to monitor the hospitals after one became so packed with patients that federal officials lost track of a number of Afghans receiving medical care, including a month-old child suffering from a possibly life-threatening condition.

Kristin Nickerson, executive director of the Northern Virginia Emergency Response System, said the child was later located in one of the hospitals. Nickerson, who also directs the Northern Virginia Hospital Alliance, confirmed that another hospital was forced to turn away American patients.

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Biden Adviser Says Administration Will ‘Run Over’ GOP Governors Who Resist Vaccine Mandates

White House senior adviser Cedric Richmond said President Joe Biden is willing to “run over” any Republican governors who attempt to fight back against federal vaccine mandates.

After Biden unveiled a plan to impose either vaccination or frequent testing on over 80 million workers who are employed at companies that have 100 employees or more, Richmond told CNN that the White House is ready for GOP opposition.

“The one thing I admire about this president is the fact that we are always going to put people above politics. And we’re going to fight for those who really need our help,” Richmond, a former Democrat congressman from Louisiana, said in response to a question about governors resisting the mandate.

“And those governors that stand in the way, I think, it was very clear from the president’s tone today that he will run over them,” he said. “And it is important. It’s not for political purposes. It’s to save the lives of American people. And so, we won’t let one or two individuals stand in the way. We will always err on the side of protecting the American people.”

Richmond’s comment, however, raises questions about how the federal government plans to “run over” states, as the United States government is federalist and combines the central government with state and local governments.

A number of Republican governors on Thursday, following Biden’s speech, said they would resist the vaccine mandate. Should the federal government direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to impose testing or vaccine mandates on private employees, Biden will face an avalanche of lawsuits.

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Groups push back against Biden’s plan to grant IRS access to your bank account (and PayPal) transaction data

Banking industry officials and other financial services firms are bracing for a long fight over a bill that will require banks to share consumer account information with the Internal Revenue Service to boost federal tax revenue.

This notion originally gained traction this spring within the American Families Plan by the Biden administration. But bankers and even some consumer groups have slammed it as a compliance concern and a privacy issue. Financial institutions already provide the IRS with large quantities of data.

As part of the 3.5 trillion dollar budget reconciliation package proposed by the Biden administration, legislators are considering this invasive proposal as an income source to fund the massive budget.

The Biden administration argued that bank surveillance would prevent tax evasion, but many are obviously concerned that it’s a breach of the Fourth Amendment (which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government) and would also favor those who are embracing the move towards decentralized finance and cryptocurrencies, as well as those that use off-shore accounts.

The proposals would force banks to report every deposit and withdrawal related to a bank account and would also include centralized companies such as PayPal, Venmo, (owned by PayPal), CashApp, and cryptocurrency exchanges.

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Meet Toka, the Most Dangerous Israeli Spyware Firm You’ve Never Heard Of

This past Sunday, an investigation into the global abuse of spyware developed by veterans of Israeli intelligence Unit 8200 gained widespread attention, as it was revealed that the software – sold to democratic and authoritarian governments alike – had been used to illegally spy on an estimated 50,000 individuals. Among those who had their communications and devices spied on by the software, known as Pegasus, were journalists, human rights activists, business executives, academics and prominent political leaders. Among those targeted political leaders, per reports, were the current leaders of France, Pakistan, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Iraq.

The abuse of Pegasus software in this very way has been known for several years, though these latest revelations appear to have gained such traction in the mainstream owing to the high number of civilians who have reportedly been surveilled through its use. The continuation of the now-years-long scandal surrounding the abuse of Pegasus has also brought considerable controversy and notoriety to the Israeli company that developed it, the NSO Group.

While the NSO Group has become infamous, other Israeli companies with even deeper ties to Israel’s intelligence apparatus have been selling software that not only provides the exact same services to governments and intelligence agencies but purports to go even farther.

Originally founded by former Israeli Prime Minister and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ehud Barak, one of these companies’ wares are being used by countries around the world, including in developing countries with the direct facilitation of global financial institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank. In addition, the software is only made available to governments that are “trusted” by Israel’s government, which “works closely” with the company.

Despite the fact that this firm has been around since 2018 and was covered in detail by this author for MintPress News in January 2020, no mainstream outlet – including those that have extensively covered the NSO Group – has bothered to examine the implications of this story.

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